


Interlude

by Starlightify



Series: to ground [4]
Category: DCU
Genre: Dermatillomania, Gen, Mental Health Issues, depersonalization/derealization, neurodivergent character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-20
Updated: 2016-11-20
Packaged: 2018-09-01 00:10:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8599291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starlightify/pseuds/Starlightify
Summary: Despite all odds, pretty much everything wound up going according to plan. Of course, that doesn't mean it's all better now.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place almost immediately after the finale of "Coup de Grâce." Warnings for violence, suicide ideation, depersonalization/derealization, and semi-accidental self harm. Because killing the man who killed you is bound to come with some psychological consequences.

Jason’s fingers are numb.

The Joker is dead.

Dead by his hand.

His bullet.

Bullets, really - it had probably only taken one to put the Joker down, but Jason kept squeezing the trigger, emptied the clip into the Joker’s head. It had made a pretty good mess. There’s still gore in the folds of his knuckles.

He should wash his hands. He’s back at his safehouse - the safest one, theoretically, the one with all the alarms and tripwires. The one with running water. He should wash his hands. His face. Something. He should do… something.

But oh god, now what? What is there to do now?

He really can’t ever see Bruce again. Bruce decided that nothing, no amount of pain, no amount of suffering, would write the Joker’s death warrant. Jason decided differently. Jason acted on it. Now Bruce is never going to take him back.

Jason pulls at the beginnings of a hangnail. Pulls and pulls until he’s opened himself, bright blood welling from the hole he’s made in his flesh. He flicks the dead skin onto the floor watches himself bleed with a detached fascination.

He should get cleaned up.

He still has a full clip in the other .45.

Is there anything left for him now?

He reaches out, but grabs his phone instead of the gun. He’s supposed to…

‘You call me, habibi. You call me any time you feel like it, and you call me when you don’t feel like it but you need to. You promise me that.’

Jason hits the call button. It rings once. Twice. Three times.

“Hello?” Talia says. She sounds alert. Awake. He doesn’t know what time it is where she is, or where she is at all.

Jason opens his mouth. Swallows. Manages, after a few false starts, to say “Hi.”

He hears the rustle of the phone being covered, Talia’s voice, saying something fast in a language he can’t recognize. Then she’s back. “Jason. Are you safe?”

“Safe as I can get,” he says, and curls up, pulling his knees to his chest with his free arm. There’s a spatter of blood on his right pantsleg, from when he broke the Joker’s nose. He should change out of these clothes. There’s a lot of things he should do. But he’s scared. If he washes out the blood, removes the evidence, will it still be real? He, better than anyone, knows that death can be erased. That it isn’t necessarily the end of the story.

The Joker could still come back. This could all be for nothing.

“Can you tell me what’s happened?” Talia asks.

Jason shifts. “I killed him,” he says, voice hoarse and raw. A far cry from the voice he’d used when he called Selina to tell her the job was done - detached, professional, cool. He’d still been buzzed then, molecules spinning free, electricity marshalled in a vaguely human form. Now he’s just cold. Hollow. “I killed the Joker. Whole clip in his head.”

“Good,” Talia says. “Jason, I’m so proud of you.”

He feels a curl of happiness, of love, twist through his heart before the hollow cold _empty_ consumes it. ”I don’t know what to do now,” he says. “I don’t…” His voice cracks, squeaks into nothing. His face is wet. “What am I here for any more?”

“Oh, habibi,” Talia says. “You aren’t here for anything. No one is. You just are.”

“I don’t feel like I am,” he says. He’s so cold. He’s on his bed. If he crawls under the sheets, he’ll get them messy. He took his boots off at the door, at least - no amount of derealization would make him track Arkham mud on his floors. But he stays sat on top of the covers. If he’s not capable of cleaning himself up, he doesn’t deserve to get under the sheets.

“Breathe with me,” Talia says.

She counts for inhales. Exhales. Jason falls into the pattern, sucked in even though he resists at first because he doesn’t deserve to feel good, doesn’t deserve to _feel_. But her voice pulls at the memories of hundreds of other times she helped him come down, come back to himself. And he takes his breaths with her. Inhale. Exhale.

Breathe.

Breathe.

“I don’t think I can stay here,” he says, voice trembling. “I should - there’s still so much - but I -”

“It’s okay,” says Talia. “Jason, it’s okay. I would like to have you back. And Damian has missed you as well. I can have you on a flight in the next few hours, if that’s what you want.”

Jason nods, then says “Yeah. Please. I…” He doesn’t know how to continue the statement, so he lets it trail off, echo on the smooth surfaces of his safehouse.

“Get packed, Jason. I’ll see you soon.”

“See you soon,” he says. The phone sits heavy in his hands.

Jason unloads the .45.

Jason washes his hands. Changes his clothes. Packs his bags.

Leaves Gotham behind.

**Author's Note:**

> We're currently working on the "Talia meets Batfam" backstory. It's another Big Fic, which, if our track record is anything to go by, means it'll be a few months until we post it. To encourage its progress, whisper gently into a fallen leaf.


End file.
